Open Source: It’s a way of innovating and collaborating

Contrary to popular belief, open source is neither a company nor a product. It’s a way of innovating and collaborating. It’s about people working together to create groundbreaking ideas. Today’s most innovative technologies, from the Internet of Things (IoT) to machine learning, are all being driven by open source. It has the potential to impact people from all strata of society, and significantly enrich the way we live. Across Asia Pacific (AP) region, we’re seeing exceptionally strong growth in the open source movement. In the financial services sector alone, adoption has grown by 7.5 percent last year compared to 2013. In fact, we have even seen more than 120 percent growth for the largest financial services adopters in AP, driven by the need for quicker customization and increased security demands.

Transformation through open source

The potential of this is brilliantly shown by shown by the BSE’s (formerly the Bombay Stock Exchange Ltd.) recent move from proprietary technology to open source. Through open source, the BSE reduced its trade transaction time from 10 milliseconds to 6 microseconds – making it the fastest stock exchange in the world. This led to increased trading volume, from 10 million to 400 million per day. Open source is also central to smart city initiatives across the region, such as the Singapore Smart Nation Vision. If these projects aren’t built around open source, they will become beholden to propriety technology which will eventually hold back progress. In emerging economies across the region, open source is being used to drive innovation to solve bigger national questions. It’s gone from a coding method to a value philosophy. Artificial intelligence (AI) is another really exciting technology, and we believe it is going to convince even more organizations to switch from proprietary solutions to open source. The likes of Google and Facebook have already open sourced their AI technologies, realizing the benefits that a collaborative approach will have on its rapid development.

Unstoppable momentum

IDC/Red Hat, Future of Asia Pacific Services report,2015 there’s an irrefutable sign of acceptance all across the tech landscape, as organizations are starting to incorporate open source technology into every main component of their business. So much so that CEOs are now associating open source with innovation, instead of just another cost–‐cutting strategy in today’s challenging operating environment. We’re equally excited about the potential of various developing open source–‐based technologies, like containers for app development. Beyond some kinks to be worked out in the dependencies department, all the feature functionalities that are exactly the things that most enterprises need to complement and realize the full benefits of Web 2.0.

Reaping the benefits

The true value of open source technologies can only be realized over time after they’re been put into action. Early adopters are now enjoying long–‐term savings to pay off their initial investment, as well as tangible outcomes like increased business agility, among many other benefits. TimesofMoney, India’s leading global digital payment services provider, experienced rapid growth but was held back by a legacy platform that restricted scalability and efficiency, resulting in frequent downtime. The company needed a cost-effective solution that would seamlessly streamline its business processes, including back-end operations, risk management and compliance, and merchant and customer onboarding. Migrating to Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform helped TimesofMoney scale quickly to meet stakeholder and customer expectations.

About the author:Rajesh Rege, Managing Director, Red Hat, heads the India Operations of the world’s leading provider of open source solutions. A business leader with over 26 years of rich industry experience, he is chartered with engaging stakeholders across communities spanning customers, partners, regulatory & policy making bodies as well as eco-system partners in adopting open innovation to its fullest potential.

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